“ROLL FOR INITIATIVE”

1.

+4.

5.

Oh fuck. Oh fuck. Oh FUCK.

Time unfreezes and immediately I can see raw magic gathering at the tip of big nasty’s horn. I want to fire off another fire bolt or maybe pull out a bigger spell but I’m unable to. Probably because I rolled a natural 1 for initiative.

“Where’s our Princess Nightmare Moon?!” The rainbow pony yells out and this time actually charges at the villain before she can put a giant hole in my chest. Nightmare Moon manages to evade the rainbow bullet heading at her and once again pierces my soul with those eyes.

Screw this, I jump over the railing and start falling toward the ground floor but before I can I see a beam of pure energy barreling towards me. Crap, I was hoping I could fall fast enough that she’d miss.

I reach my arm out and grab one of the yellow sun banners hanging from the ceiling and yank as hard as I can with my arm pulling myself into a swing towards the other side of the room.

*CRRRKK*

And that’s apparently the sound a banner makes when it decides to give up on life. Looks like I’m not gunna make it to the other side and I’ll just have to settle for being in the middle of the room. I managed to dodge the magic attack at least.

By this point a majority of the ponies in the room are scrambling towards the exit doors, but some white ponies in golden armor are flying towards the she-demon. She gives the guards one sweeping look and starts smiling which can’t be a good sign so I decide to try and be useful again. To my surprise, I can attack finally. From this distance none of my leveled spells are going to be particularly useful and I don’t really think I have enough time to get closer if I wanna hit her before she can do whatever she’s planning to do with those guards, so let’s just go with ole reliable again.

I point my finger towards Nightmare Moon and fire off another Fire Bolt.

1. +7. 11.

My fire bolt zooms past her head, completely missing. Where are the rolls I was getting earlier? C’mon dice I’m trying to not die here! I notice the metal bracers start humming on my wrist and I remember the Illusionists’ Bracers! Whenever I cast a cantrip spell like Fire Bolt the bracers store the spell and I can fire it again on the same turn.

Ok, breathe. We got 1 more shot. Let’s do it.

“Fire Bolt!”

1. +7. 24.

The spark of fire lands seems to graze past her neck leaving some singed fur before continuing into the wall of the building, but I see a 10 sided die come into view which means I did do something.

1. Glancing blow. 2 Fire Damage.

She has 24 AC. Ok this is fine, totally fine. I’m sure those guards are decently strong, I can continue supporting them from afar and we can wear her down.

As if on queue her horn lights up again and suddenly a bright flash of light fills my vision, and I see a lightning bolt strike the guard closest to her, and it bounces to the next. It bounces again. Oh shit it’s chain lightning!

“DEXTERITY SAVE”

1. +4. 21.

Time resumes and the lightning bolt proceeds to bounce between 3 other guards sending them all flying before coming my way. I manage to scramble out of the way and the bolt hits the ground right next to me.

Looking around I see it’s just me, Twilight, Applejack, rainbow pony, and Nightmare Moon, and boy oh boy Nightmare really looks like she wants me dead.

Before she can make her dreams a reality I feel the wind knocked out of my chest and suddenly I’m outside the building. In fact, I’m about 40 feet in the air moving quickly back towards the library with the blue pegasus carrying me.

“Dude! That’s what I’m talking about! I don’t know what you are, but I know we’re on the same page. You were all like “Fire bolt” pew pew bwahh and I was all like “HI-YAH” with my Pony-Fu. I really like yo-”

“Where are we going?! I need to talk to the Princess and that bitch is the only one that knows where she is!” I decided to interrupt the speeding Skittles representative.

“Twilight said she had a plan, but that we needed to retreat and regroup. She teleported Fluttershy and Rarity out then she teleported herself and Applejack at the same time I grabbed you.” You know what? That’s agreeable, Nightmare doesn't seem to be chasing us even though we were clearly out classed so I’m going to just quietly concur with these ponies and see what Twilight's plan is.

“Alright then let’s hear what the plan is. We need to take this horse down so I can go home.”

Author's Note

Sorry for the shorter chapter. I had originally wanted this chapter to cover all the way through until either the start of the actual NMM fight or on a cliff hanger in the middle of the fight, but I'm getting writers block on how to handle the trek through the Everfree and this seemed like a good stopping point.